Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/1182394
t m c » p u l s e | n o v e m b e r 2 0 1 9 t m c » p u l s e | n o v e m b e r 2 0 1 9 14 A year ago, LINA HIDALGO became the first woman and the first Latina to be elected County Judge in Harris County. Hidalgo, 28, serves as the presiding officer of the Harris County Commissioners Court, the county's main governing body, which oversees a $4.3 billion budget. As Harris County Judge, Hidalgo is also the director of emergency management. The Colombia native, who immigrated to the Houston area as a teenager, decided to run for office after the 2016 election. TMC Pulse spoke with Hidalgo just a few days after Tropical Storm Imelda battered the region. Q | I planned on asking you first about health care, but we just dealt with Tropical Storm Imelda. This was your first major flooding experience since you took office. What did you learn about managing flooding on a large scale? A | When we came into office, we had to deal with the fires at ITC [Intercontinental Terminals Company], at chemical manufac- turer KMCO, and ExxonMobil. We commissioned an independent gap analysis of our systems that was very much focused on air moni- toring and enforcement of laws in these chemical facilities, but we also looked at operations and our office of emergency management. We identified gaps I inherited. We had been working on those, and that paid off in the flood. There was increased coordination—for example, there's one website for emergency information. Folks today can go to ReadyHarris.org. It has information for survivors on how Spotlight to file insurance claims, how to muck and gut a home, how to get into the system for aid that may become available. It has informa- tion for people who want to help on where to donate and where to volunteer. During the disaster, we had information on road closures and bayou and channel levels. Part of this is about consolidation and coordination; the response to these disasters is only as good as your ability to work together. Having one place where people can go is really important. We also had a 160 percent increase in the number of high water rescue vehicles available since Hurricane Harvey. We have a department coordinating the sher- iff's assets, the constables' assets, the fire marshal's assets and the other departments' rescue vehicles. We were able to meet all demand in terms of rescue. Harvey was bigger, of course, but we were able to get there. There are other things we didn't have time to implement. A better notification system is something that will still take a few months. Right now, people have to go online to sign up and get alerts. We have tens of thousands of people who've signed up, but there are millions of people in the county. Unless you signed up, you don't get alerts unless it's a National Weather Service alert. We require approval from the federal government for what are called "push notifications," where folks receive an alert on their phone, whether or not they signed up. The good news is residents listened. We could have had much worse outcomes in terms of deaths. Any death is an enormous tragedy, and when this started, I sat down with the whole team and we were thinking about what the impact might be. It was certainly less than what we expected. That tells me people did a good job doing their part, staying off the roads, not driving into deep water. We need to keep beating that drum. ➟